


Fever

by AcousticStorm



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drabble, Internal Conflict, M/M, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 18:52:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6820009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcousticStorm/pseuds/AcousticStorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how much he fights, he's still too weak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fever

In the end, when he realizes they’re not siblings, he goes back to her because it’s how it should be.

He goes back to her because it’s easy, and he knows she loves him, and it’s not like he doesn’t.

Just maybe not like that. Not anymore.

* * *

 They don’t talk about that night, they don’t really talk at all anymore, but Jace can see it in his eyes every time their eyes awkwardly meet across the room. He takes his away after three seconds at most because anything more than that and he’s sure he would crumble.

But he sees it, echoed in his look, that he remembers it, because _Angel_ , Jace does.

He remembers all about it, every little sigh, every touch, the way Alec burned him so deeply that even after all marks on his body are gone, his whole being is still blazing, the edges of his soul slowly charring away.

It’s not like he didn’t know it would happen; it was inevitable, with their bond, that no matter how he felt about Alec, if anything happened there would be no going back. Just like Eve, he bit from the forbidden apple and convinced Adam to do the same, too weak against the temptation. When he walked into Alec’s room that night, desperate and wretched, searching for anything that was still real in that mess, Alec hadn’t said no. Jace doubted that he even could.

And indeed, the place they fell in was sweeter than any heaven and worse than any hell, a sort of terrible middle ground where he could never be fully happy because the weight of it hung massive over his head, threatening to crush him, but he could not consider it hell when it had felt _so good. So right._

He tried to fix it, he tried, because he **loves** her, he loves her, he _loves_ her. He loved her, and she deserves more than that.

But it is beyond what he feels at that point, and he is nothing more than a junkie, addicted to something he only finds on Alec’s tongue, under his hands on his skin. He is weak, so, _so weak_ , fisting his hands to dig nails in his flesh, leaving bloody crescents, but that doesn't stop his knuckles from rapping on the door and for Alec to open it in the next millisecond because he didn’t have to tell him he was there, but he waited until Jace started it, always did. _Absolving himself of any guilt every single time_ , Jace thought, too blinded by his self-loathing to feel the doubt under all of Alec’s touches, not knowing how used he was to disguising it under whatever Jace wanted.

Every time it happens, he leaves the second after and tries to desperately block any emotions flickering through their bond. He broke a table with a punch the first time he realized it, that day by day their bond only became stronger, up until the moment when _everything_ Alec felt trickled through to him. In the beginning it felt like a second point of awareness in his body, the feelings strange and foreign, but day by day it melts into him, filling through the cracks in his being, making him _whole_. It's **_becoming him,_** and that's not a battle to be won no matter how good of a soldier he might be, but Jace doesn't know that. All he knows is that he's too weak for anything that matters, so he pushes on. 

It is a vicious circle, the more he tries to get away from it, the more the need intensifies and when he eventually crumbles, quicker and quicker as time passes, the more intense it gets, and the more afraid he gets. Back to square one.

It grows unabashed, however, all notions of heaven and hell getting lost at one point under the need, and he doesn’t care as long as he gets his fix. He’s addicted in the worst way, and it’s inevitable that it slips from physical after a while, until he comes with Alec’s name on his lips, something that never happened before. He’s shocked enough by it to wait a second longer before getting up to put his clothes on and he might as well imagine the _‘Stay’_ that is barely a notch above the sounds he’s making. He wonders if he did, imagine it that is, but when he turns back around Alec is looking at him and he knows that he didn’t.

Alec might as well have been looking at him every time he left because Jace never looked back, but he masterfully managed to hold back demanding more until the exact moment he picked up on that shift, knowing Jace well enough to sense the smallest change. And Jace doesn’t know if it’s that knowledge or the way he suddenly can’t say no to the hazel eyes staring him down that know what’s better for him, but a force stops his movements. Alec’s look is unwavering, hard and betraying no emotion, but he can feel it clearly now, the plea in their bond, the need, the possibility. Alec’s lips don’t move either, but Jace can hear it clearly now, how he’s offering him whatever he wants, how he’s giving himself up to Jace’s needs, raw and open, and Jace is too weak to fight that.

After what seems like an eternity later, when he’s tucked under Alec’s arm, he finally gathers all the strength he has and admits it to himself. He presses a hand against their rune on Alec's hip and reaches up to kiss him; the realization and the acceptance ring clear even though unspoken. _I’m yours anyway._


End file.
